My phone buzzed last night just after 11 PM.
It was a new client: "Hi, are you still up? I know it's late, but I wanted to ask..." Followed by six questions—material, timeline, pricing—all laid out neatly.
I checked the time. 11:47 PM. Most people would be asleep by now. But the way she wrote her message made it clear she was still working on this. She'd probably been sitting at her computer for three hours, getting her questions in order, then hesitated, then sent them anyway.
I replied: "Still here. Give me a minute to calculate."
It took about fifteen minutes. I answered all six. She said: "I'm sorry to bother you this late." I said: "It's fine. Someone on our team is usually up at this hour."
She asked two more questions. I answered. She said thank you and added: "I'll go through your replies properly tomorrow. Good night."
I looked at the time when the conversation ended. 12:23 AM.
The next morning, I saw Old Zhang had posted in the group chat: "Who was asking about timeline in the group last night?" I said: "Wasn't in the group. It was a client messaging me directly." Old Zhang said: "Oh, okay. Thought it was something urgent."
A lot of our orders start with a thought, a question, a late night. You reply quickly, and they can sleep. Otherwise they might lie awake until 2 or 3 AM going over it in their head. It's not about "good service." It's more that—they're up late thinking about this, and we shouldn't pretend we didn't see it.